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Yesterday we mentioned the controversy facing Matt Stone and Trey Parker after last week's South Park (episode 200) depicted Muhammad, founder of Islam, concealed in a bear suit.
Today, penguinman1337 writes "Apparently, all is not well over at Comedy Central. The heavily censored version of episode 201 that aired last night has a lot of people angry, including the show's creators." From their note: "In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps."

Honestly, Trey Parker and Matt Stone basically prop up Comedy Central. They only have, what, 3 shows that are really big? The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and South Park. South Park seems to be the top even in that category. Comedy Central needs them more than the other way around. Hell South Park has enough following that it could be profitably distributed as a web series and still make plenty of money from ads and merchandise sales.

Never the less, there has to be a point where the West stands up for its hard won values, and not just against Islamists, but against governments who are equally terrified of our liberties.

What this whole debacle, and every single time some group or another decides their religious beliefs trump free speech demonstrates is pathetic cowardice and utter immaturity. I truly pity those so frightened of words that they feel they have to threaten violence. I can't imagine being that craven and worthless.

If any of you have actually read koran, you will know - it is not only a religious text, intending to govern inner space of an individual. It is a fully laden constitution, complete with civil and criminal law. Everything, ranging from how to distribute inheritance to what 'rights' minorities can have in an islamic society, is tied to concrete rules there. Curiously, most of the rules contained therein are similar with hedjaz tribal customs and laws (particularly quraish tribe) from pro mohammad times.

However, because koran is the 'unchanged' word of god (so says islam), it is unobjectionable. Add to that the fact that islam based on koran is put forth as the only way to live for muslims in koran, it makes islam impossible to coexist with any other social system or law. This is the cause of the friction in countries that are not from middle east, have modern legislations, and muslim minorities.

Egyptian reformers tried to deal with these, tried to 'modernize' islam, and 'reinterpret' koran in the light of modern principles. Results were disastrous. Some of them were killed, some of them had to flee the country, and some of them had to shut up. The struggle continues even to this day. Because koran is put forth as unchanged word of god, it is impossible to find any excuse to reinterpret it. And because you cant reinterpret it, you cant make it compatible with modern principles and views.

And this creates the basis of power for islamism, ie the noticeable segment of muslim organizations that intend to create a one world sharia government. It is impossible to argue against them, because of the above issues.

Ironically, muslims also suffer oppression from this, because the direct interpretation of koran, well, comes up medieval. If you attempt to fully adhere to islam, numerous civil oppressions become inevitable, due to the rulings set in koran. However, mild muslims, a noticeable percentage of muslim population around the world, also cant argue against this, because it is set in koran, and koran is unchanged word of god.

Until these issues are solved, islam will be creating problems and not be able to fit in.

(any muslim slashdotters, please spare me the 'you dont know real islam' shit, i was a muslim once and i studied koran at length, with cross references to mohammad's hadith, unless many of so called muslims which use that bullshit excuse despite not having ever read koran once. so save it).

"I just want you guys to know that in bowing to pressure from a bunch of religious radicals, you have successfully offended millions of Americans who believe freedom of speech needs to be preserved and protected. You have failed the american people and let the agents of terror dictate your actions.

Now that you have set this precedent, radicals know that all they have to do to get their way is to threaten with violence. Thanks for setting back hundreds of years worth of progressive thought and returning us to the days when the church gets to dictate what the masses can view."

Many Muslims are in a situation similar to what we went through with Crusades and the like. It's a phase (and they aren't nearly as bad as we were back then, really) -- it's a transition phase and we need to help them go through it; baby steps.

Looking at history, and human nature, it's more likely that liberal western civilization is a phase. It's a blip in history. The free world is more likely to fall to totalitarianism than the muslim world is to be enlightened.

I don't think the losers at "revolutionmuslim.com" have thought this through. Do they realize who they are messing with? They are messing with millions of geeks. If one hair on the head of Trey or Matt were touched after these powerless mockworthy little boys incited violence against them, their lives would be a husk.

It would be like those nature shows where tens of thousands of ants swarm over a hapless creature, take it apart and cart its lifeless body away.

I say, put up their personal info, just as they did to Trey and Matt. Put up their home address. Their business address. All their website info. Their relatives. Their license plates. Photos. The names of their friends. Their cell phone logs. Then, inform them that they will immediately commence to STFU, now, or their existence will become a hell the likes of which their holy book never informed them.

Interestingly enough, we now have proof that isn't true. Islam maintains the Koran is as it always has been and that it is unchanged, literal transcription of Mohammed. That's why they condemn the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah. Turns out, the Koran has been proved to be in flux as late as 160+ years AFTER Mohamed died.

Naturally Islam is claiming everything from blasphemy to the work of Satan. Some even claim the West created this Koran in question and planted it within the hidden set of text to be "discovered" again so as to discredit Islam and the Koran.

Oddly enough, if you take the Koran as literal truth, it is itself mandating you understand the Koran is not true. Makes me wonder how many people are likely to die in the future as more and more come to understand the book which open touts it is both the literal word and unchanging truth, has in fact been changed by man and remained in flux well after Mohammed's death; which is contrary to ALL Islamic teachings. Even worse, the Koran argues all text which has been changed by man has been corrupted by Satan; which is why they largely ignore the old testament and Torah despite being squarely rooted in it. In short, the Koran it self now argues the Koran is the work of Satan and can not be trusted any more than the Torah or the Old Testament.

Funny how no Muslims gave a crap that south Park already showed Muhammed in full face glory, and conversed with him during the Super Best Friends episode...but that was years before the Dutch cartoon crisis that made us all "sensitive".
Frankly, the idea that Muslims are being portrayed as irrational, murderous, religious fanatics is more disturbing than any insult SP might offer. Muslims should be pissed that everyone thinks they'll flare up into terrorism at every sideways glance at their faith.
or conversely, if Muslims really ARE that prone to murderous violence, that's kind of important to know too, and we should do something about it.
yes, I am actually saying that if a group of people are one off color joke away from committing murder, we need to "do something" about them.

Man, you sound like Cheney. When you aim south, somebody’s going to get shot in the north! ^^

Or in other words: You deserve an award for how much you miss the point. (And not a good award.)

Protip: There was a time when Christians acted like this. It’s called THE DARK AGES!It was a desperate time. With crusades, inquisitions, but most of all, power-greedy dicks controlling people.This is the exact same thing now. Only in the Muslim world.It does not matter AT ALL, which “religion” it is.Because religion really is a protective mechanism gone haywire, causing a delusional reality distortion. Which is then used by some real immoral assholes, to manipulate people, to do shit like this.

But your anger only fuels it even more. And I think you know this, and do it deliberately. Or at least should know it, if you want to call yourself educated and better.What do you think you going to get, by acting like a dick and strengthening their disease even more?

Wanna know how to get them out of their delusion? The same thing as with schizophrenia: Offer them a better alternative, and let them keep their pride. Let them migrate to that better alternative, until they simply stop having the need for the delusion.Then they naturally will stop caring for “Muhammed”.

Of course this is easier said than done. But I don’t see an alternative. Or do you really want to insult and kill disabled people? I couldn’t be that heartless. Because it would make me no betther than the mullahs or them.

Wanna know what I do when I meet a religious extremist?I do a little nice gesture, that makes their life better, and causes them to instantly like me.When I do it right, and give them some time, I can pull a joke on Muhammed, and they won’t hate me, but join in in it.The little glimmer of hope that we’re actually nice people and will together make things good, is already enough.Try it. And you may even make your enemies your allies.:)

Is it off-base for me to ask that you sort this out amongst yourselves before requiring the non-believers to follow your religious edicts under threat of death?

Yes

I agree with your post, but what does a mainstream Muslim have in common with these people? Would you ask Sunday worshipers coming out of a neighborhood church why they haven't fixed the problems with the Westbro baptist church or pro-revolutionaries?

Do you really want to start comparing the number of people murdered by "Muslims" to the number of people murdered by "Christians?" I guarantee you the Muslims have the higher body count - substantially. In fact, here's Islam's dirty little secret: most Muslims who die violently do so at the hands of *gasp* OTHER MUSLIMS. Stop trying to create some bizarre moral equivalence where none exists. Muslims are by definition violent. Their understanding of their religion hasn't evolved one iota since day 1.

By the way, if you happen to be a techno-savvy hard-line Muslim reading this post, I have one question for you: shouldn't your first problem, before Matt & Trey, be with the second most populous denomination of Islam, the Shi'a, who apparently have no problem with depictions of Muhammad? Is it off-base for me to ask that you sort this out amongst yourselves before requiring the non-believers to follow your religious edicts under threat of death?

FYI - Shia represent 10%~15% of the ~1.5 billion muslims.And considering that they've been killing one another since the Sunni-Shia split in the 7th Century,I think it's fair to say that they've been busy sorting this out for the better part of 1,400 years.

That aside, your question is a rhetorical flourish and completely devoid of substance.Do we ever tell the Pope to STFU because he disagrees with some other Christian Church 1/10th their size?

Well actually to Christians, Christ is the Son of God, not a prophet. The nice thing about Christianity though is that for the most part, with the exception of a few kooks, they're all content to leave it to God to handle unbelievers in the next life. If you don't want to believe that's fine. Either you're right, and it's all a fairy tale, or you're wrong and you'll burn in Hell. Too many Muslims seem anxious to take over Allah's job of punishing unbelievers. It's like they don't trust him to do the job properly or something.

I'm not required to. However America's values (and my values) place freedom of speech extremely highly. It is the very top of the bill of rights. As such, in America it should be protected at nearly all costs, even if it pisses others off.

So if you live in a culture that doesn't like free speech, fine, I don't care. That's not my problem and we have NO reason at all to be "sensitive" about your culture. Especially when those cultures don't seem to be "sensitive" about ours.

I've ran that test 3 times and it reports DNS errors for everywhere except 2 places, Washington D.C. and Beijing, where it resolves (and connects) successfully.

I don't know what that means, but I just thought it was strange, I don't see a lot of DNS errors on internetsupervision.com. It looks like the site is being actively blocked, except in those 2 places (at least).

Clearly you didn't get what he said. There's a difference between being a gun-toting American and a gun-toting American who's out preaching that the end is fucking nigh, hides his children, and then marches down main street with a gun in one hand and a bible in the other while threatening to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and incidentally anyone else who doesn't agree with him. At some point, those particular gun-toting Americans begin to look awfully like the Taliban

Really?Halal is pretty much defacto way of slaughtering these days (europe at least), turns out less stress on the cattle (=better meat) and as a bonus you got the muslim minority as customers. Sure as hell aint muslim, but I buy lots of halal, only meat i buy that isn't halal is bacon.

And if CC is going to lose a lot of advertisement over lag of prayer rug commercials, they are doing something seriously wrong...

From the Creator. The creator who creates love in peoples hearts. Why should the institutions and creations of man take precedence over the creators work? Same sex relationships are seen throughout nature. Yet in man, institutions that have turned their face away from God call this "sinful". It is those institutions that violate the sanctity of life and love in God's eyes.

It is a man-made "church" that proclaims right and wrong and claims to speak for God -- yet their words go against the habits of creatures on this earth -- it pretty obvious that they are "unnatural" -- a perversion of the natural order God established. Let each be attracted to who they will and be in alignment with God's blessings.

If it's politically correct to say it or not the fact remains that homosexuality differs from the norm and is, biologically speaking, of no use to furthering the human species.

It doesn't need to be furthered -- it needs to be nurtured. Men on the make ain't doing alot of nuturing any time I've seen. Once married, maybe, Male couples can nuture as well -- when love flourishes -- as it does among female couples. IT's not as easy for male couples but it's relatively easy for for female couples to reproduce -- and with science, with each others genes!But that's not really the point of love. It's about loving and giving to another, love without an agenda -- a type of love that heterosexual couples find it harder to experience.

It is an inherrently selfish pursuit that leaves the notion of service to your fellow man (make jokes about that if you like!) completely out of the picture.

Not having children and devoting your life to science and art is selfish? Not having children is selfish? How about men who have to spread their seed into an over populated world who disproportionally will be the ones to leave their partner to raise a child alone? Who's selfish here? Statistically, it's the men who walk. You can be sure that gay couples won't be so selfish as to use impregnation as a way of enslavement or blithely leave behind single parents or children on the street.Statistics and reality don't backup your claims of selfishness. Caring first for themselves and their partners is doing the earth alot more good than those who are polluting the world with more uncared for and uncherished children (not that all are, but a sizable percentage of your supposedly "not selfish" net parents will produce such a result).

Normalization of homosexuality is foolish as it is (mathematically speaking) not normal.Mathematically speaking, left handers are not normal. Should we pass laws to stop them from marrying? They might pass on left handed genes...

If you think about it -- if gays do marry, they will be less likely to reproduce than their het counterparts, and genetically, they won't contribute as much to the gene pool -- but if honored and accepted into society, they will help raise the standard of living for today. Since they have no children of their own -- many make great workers in child care -- or would if it wasn't for anti-gay propaganda. By any measure -- absolute or per-capital, more heterosexual males are abusers of children than any other group. NOT gay men. And lesbians? I've heard of a few freak incidents of a woman with lesbian inclinations going over the edge, but those I've who like to be around children are very caring and make ideal child care workers -- they don't have to go home to take care of their own.

Opening recognition for gay couples leaves the floodgates open for polygimous groups and other non-traditional spousal units to get their "rights" recognized.

And??

"It takes a village to raise a child" used to be common sense. Children were better off when groups of adults were around to interact with them. In today's society, having only 2 adults, both of whom are

It makes me sad to think that the beeped-out version is considered something to be angry about. I thought the beeps were great and actually made this "masterpiece" complete - if they are "real", even better, that gives it a special touch. I was laughing my ass of when I watched the conclusion in the end: "I learned something today *beeeeeeeee*". And I'm sure, I'm not the only one. Can't imagine whatever has been in place of the beeps would have been more fitting or funny. I know I didn't stop laughing before the first long beeping sound ended and I started again, when Jesus and Santa started "beeping". And it's just so extraordinarily ironic, we'll never know what we should have "learned" from those incidents due to the censorship (And that "Jesus" isn't allowed to talk about you-know-what - this theme has already be in the episode before). Is there anything more useful to learn than those circumstances in themselves? *g*

It's just so incredibly fitting. Wow. Maybe Parken & Stone are just angry because they didn't have the idea themselves or decided against it, while Comedy Central managed to do it by accident? Best episode ever;). Whatever person did the censoring deserves a medal, even though I'm not entirely sure if for doing a great job by censoring the episode without ruining it or just for being too ignorant to look at his work again afterwards and think: "wait, that just made it even funnier maybe I should start over".

Oh, well, that explains recent art like "Piss Pope" and "Chocolate Jesus." And abortion clinics. And Dawkins having a death sentence pronounced on him by the Archbishop of Canterbury. People are constantly terrified that some Christian might explode them if they say bad things. Good thing you cleared that up.

I think maybe you meant to say that Christianity has been as violent as any other religion, in which case, sure. But for people alive today, it seems much less violent than some other options. This is like whining that Germany is "no more or less racist than any other nation" when talking about Rwanda because, you know, the Germans had a period of being complete dicks. Sure, past actions impact the present, but that doesn't mean there's a moral equivalence in the current situation.

Um, Europe has been a war zone for most of its history, too. The EU is - what - 30-some years old? And we still had that conflict in Serbia/Kosovo, the Basque autonomy movement, and the IRA. The only time you get peace is when you have a big, stable state that keeps the peace, and the Middle East has had centuries in which it had those.

So, you believe that freedom of expression is a less important human right than requiring even nonbelievers to respect your religion under threat of physical reprisal?

If yes, is this a hypocritical belief, or do you think we ought to be required to respect the beliefs of all faiths equally? (Just to pick one out of the hat, for instance, the fundamentalist Mormon belief that dark-skinned people are cursed by god.)